Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) Chairman, Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka, is someone who has had issues with the leaders above him but has usually managed to relocate to a leadership position after facing some trouble. Currently, he has fallen out with SJB leader Sajith Premadasa, and things seem a bit different this time.
The only option now is to join Ranil Wickremesinghe’s camp, and if RW decides to back off, he could contest as the UNP or so-called common candidate. As he says, he is still on the fence about contesting the upcoming Presidential elections.
He is still looking forward to a reconciliation with the SJB leadership. In a live video interview broadcast on Daily Mirror, Fonseka said that there has not been any attempt by SJB Leader Sajith Premadasa to resolve differences with him and move forward.
“Even if I am reluctant to speak, he must invite me and say, ‘Let’s forget the differences, patch up, and move forward together.’ But it’s not happening,” he said. Insiders say that after SF’s parliamentary speech in which he urged the voters not to vote for Sajith Premadasa, all hopes of a reconciliation are gone. However, in politics, nothing is impossible.
SF maintains that he will not resign as the SJB Chairman right now as he does not want to abandon his supporters in the SJB.
Asked about his relationship with President Ranil Wickremesinghe, Fonseka said that he has no personal issue with the President, as it was Wickremesinghe who brought him into politics.